after the trial, when the sentence of death was carried into effect.

In a statement made by French, in his last moments, he reproached himself with the reflection, that, "had I attended to the oft-repeated advice of my friends, especially my dear mother and Mr. Mackenzie, and avoided bad company and drinking, I should not now be here; but I would not attend, and now I have to suffer."

CHAPTER VIII.

Effect of the Destruction of the Advocate Printing Office contrary to the Expectations of its Perpetrators-Pecuniary Embarrassments-Fever brought on by Anxiety and Vexation-Herculean Feats by the Midnight LampTableau of an overworked Newspaper Editor-Haunted by Ague-Sickness and Death in the Family-Robert Randall; his Influence on Mr. Mackenzie-Acting in Concert with Mackenzie and others, Randall goes to England with Petitions on the Alien Question-The Pocket Test of Patriotism-Letters to Earl Dalhousie-Statement of the Alien Question-British Subjects made Aliens by the mere Act of Passing through a Foreign Country-Difficulty of the Question; Its final Settlement-Mr. Mackenzie's Faith in Appeals to the Colonial Office.

VIOLENCE is a blindfolded demon, more likely to defeat its own objects than to attain them. The means taken to crush a public journal, obnoxious to the ruling faction, proved the cause of its resuscitation and firm establishment. At the very time when the press was broken and the type thrown into the bay, the last number of The Advocate had been issued. The fact was not known to Mr. Mackenzie's enemies, or they might not have smote the lion that was supposed by its own keeper to be dead, and thus recalled its suspended energies to life and action. The publication, burthened as it was with a postal tax payable in advance, and addressing itself to a small scattered community, had never repaid the expenditure necessary to sustain it. What means its proprietor had made in trade

were soon dissipated on the literary speculation. Between matériel, and debts, and losses, the publisher had been brought to a dead stand, and was unable to make further way. In winding up the mercantile business, many debts had been left uncollected and were still unpaid. What between purchasing land and building, buying printing materials and carrying on an unprofitable publication, he had gone beyond the compass of his available capital. He was threatened with prosecution for debt. In May, 1826, he was offered a loan of money that would have relieved him; but it was only for three months, and he could not assure himself of his ability to repay it in that time. His property, real and personal, was worth twice the amount of his debts; but he was embarrassed for ready money; threatened with capias by one creditor, and thoroughly disheartened. From these embarrassments he resolved to free himself. With the consent of Mr. Tannahill, his principal creditor, Mr. Mackenzie went to Lewiston, in order to prevent the accumulation of law costs, till his affairs could be settled. To have continued the paper another year, even if money could have been raised, would have been absolute ruin. From Lewiston he wrote, on the 27th of May, to Mr. Cawthra, at York, proposing to place the whole of his property into the hands of three trustees to be sold; and after the claims of his creditors had been satisfied, the balance to be handed over to him. "The place at Dundas," he wrote, "you could quickly dispose of; and that place is the one I am least willing to give away; but let it go for what it may fetch." His enemies afterwards pretended that he had gone

to Lewiston for the purpose of defrauding his creditors; but this calumny is sufficiently disproved by his letter to Mr. Cawthra, and by the fact that, while there, he voluntarily granted a cognovit covering the amount of the whole of the claims against him by his creditors. This was done three days before the destruction of the printing office; and consequently before any new reason had arisen for his immediate return to York. After it was all over, the creditor, by whom he had been threatened with capias, confessed, in writing, "I have not done by you as I would have wished."

Besides, his health was broken; and he had some time before been thrown into a fever by the vexation he had suffered. His eldest daughter had died, and another member of his family was ill. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that he should have sighed for that repose which journalism had interrupted in the first instance, and of which it still continued to prevent the return. But while he loved repose, he had not been able to resist the excitement of the semi-public life of the journalist, who already dreamed of the overthrow of an administration and the reform of the oligarchical system then in operation. He who repiningly compared his own toils to the quiet life of the farmer would sit up whole nights, laboring assiduously to accomplish political ends. Though he could be a child among his children, and was never so happy as when he joined in their play, he would frequently sit up for two consecutive nights, at the patient but exhausting labor of the pen. And if the pen be more powerful than the sword, it is also, in the hands of the overworked journalist, more dan

gerous to himself than is the active use of the sword to the soldier. A fevered pulse, an aching head, and all the long train of horrors resulting from a disordered stomach, are his portion. With him life is little else than endurance. The strongest nerves become unstrung, and the most powerful frame gives way. Mr. Mackenzie was blessed with a constitution, such as not one man in ten thousand possesses. It has been said of Lord Brougham, that he has been known to work for six days and six nights without ever going to bed. At a later period of his life, this extraordinary feat Mr. Mackenzie actually performed. On the occasion of these long vigils, when drowsiness came on, he would have water poured upon his head, and, thus roused up, take a fresh start. When overtaxed nature could no longer be resisted he would sleep a few minutes in his chair, then, waking, would walk round his room a few times and recommence his never-ending task. It is, or used to be, thought a great feat for a man to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours. The overworked journalist has his mile to walk every hour of his life, and when he comes to the end he is in his grave! He goes there, too, much before his appointed time; or, if all things be appointed, it is his lot, by a violent wear of the constitution, to carve out for himself an early sepul

chre.

The sixty-seven years that he lived carried Mr. Mackenzie almost to the allotted limit of human existence, but if his marvelously strong constitution had had fair-play, there must have been fully twenty years more wear in it. But after all, the wonder is that he lived so long, when his mode of life and what he was